"Splash!"
Something heavy hit the water.
The lid crashed down, sealing the pot tight.
Shi Hou instantly straddled the scorching lid, his backside pressing sparks out of it.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
The Stone Pot throbbed violently.
Every impact came with a muffled peal of thunder.
The ground shook wildly along with it, making everyone's soles go numb.
"Skinny Monkey! Have you lost your mind?!"
The broken axe slipped from Shi Linhu's hand and landed on his foot. He ignored the pain, his face twitching uncontrollably.
"That's Little One! He's a living person! Your own brother! Are you stewing him like pork?!"
The villagers around them went pale.
"Stay back!"
Shi Hou roared.
The veins at his temples writhed wildly, and the heat radiating from the pot roasted his dark face a dull red.
Both hands clamped onto the pot's handles, his knuckles white.
"If you don't want to die, back off! If this pot explodes, the lightning slurry that spills out could flatten all of Stone Village!"
"That kid's too tough to die!"
Before he finished speaking, a piercing scream came from inside the pot.
"Aah-!! Hot! Skinny Monkey, you bastard! Something's biting my butt! Help!"
His voice was thick with tears, mixed with the sizzling of electric currents.
"Suck it up!"
Shi Hou ground his iron-hard teeth together as the melody of "Flight of the Bumblebee" in his mind rocketed to 200 BPM.
His fingers drummed frantically against the handles, so fast that only afterimages remained.
Every tap forcibly drove the escaping, unruly lightning back into the pot.
"That's the essence of Suanni's lifetime of lightning cultivation! Unless you want your backside blasted open, bite down! Eat it like meat!"
"Zzzrip-!"
A bolt of golden lightning proved impossible to contain and shot out past Shi Hou's cheek.
"Boom!"
A boulder a hundred meters away instantly vaporized, leaving nothing but a charred crater trailing thin smoke.
The old chief, Shi Yunfeng, had been about to approach, but stopped dead.
His cane punched a deep hole in the ground.
The old chief stared at the black pot. Its shaking grew ever more violent, yet the golden light seeping through the gaps grew ever purer. His withered hands trembled slightly.
"Is this... using the body as a seed, forcibly tempering it through boiling?"
He grabbed the raging Shi Linhu, his voice hoarse.
"Don't interfere! This is Hao's great fortune! That little rascal Skinny Monkey... he's brewing Hao as a human medicinal treasure!"
Inside the pot.
Shi Hao was indeed nearly cooked.
Not boiled through, but cooked by high-voltage electricity.
The golden broth was no longer water. It was liquefied lightning!
Countless thumb-sized golden Suanni phantoms swam through the broth, biting whenever they found flesh.
"Nasty things! How dare you bite me!"
The shocks sent convulsions through Shi Hao's entire body. His hair stood on end, and smoke poured off him.
But they had also awakened his primal ferocity.
If Skinny Monkey said it could be eaten, then I'd eat it!
If I didn't eat you, you'd zap me!
The little fellow opened his mouth and chomped hard on a golden lightning snake that darted toward his face.
"Crunch!"
Electric arcs exploded in his mouth.
After the overwhelming numbness came an utterly domineering warm current, charging through his limbs and bones, cleansing every inch of his flesh.
"Mmph!"
Shi Hao's eyes instantly shone like two little lightbulbs.
This taste...
What a kick! So tingly! So spicy!
He thrashed around in the scorching lightning slurry, grabbing an "electric rat" with his left hand and scooping up a translucent piece of precious Suanni meat with his right.
He ate with both hands, light spraying from his mouth. Not a trace of suffering remained.
Outside.
As the final note of the BGM cut off abruptly.
Shi Hou felt the savage force beneath him, which had threatened to throw him off, recede like the tide.
[Ding! Cooking complete.] [Evaluation: This pot of nightmare cuisine could send an ordinary person to the grave, but for certain freaks, it is a supreme tonic.]
Shi Hou let out a relieved breath, looking as though he had just been fished out of the water.
"Open the pot!"
He whipped the lid off.
"Boom-!!!"
A dazzling pillar of golden light erupted like a volcano and shot into the heavens, punching a hole hundreds of feet across through the clouds overhead.
An almost tangibly rich fragrance spread in every direction.
Just one whiff.
Shi Linhu's aura shifted slightly, as though a new transformation had begun.
And at the center of that golden light.
A tiny figure clung to the rim of the pot and nimbly climbed out.
His once pale, tender skin now shimmered with a soft, jade-like luster, and tiny electric arcs sprayed from every pore.
Behind him, an incomparably majestic Suanni phantom threw back its head and roared, vivid as life.
"Is this... a precious technique entering his body, inscribing patterns into his flesh?!"
Shi Yunfeng's cane fell from his hand with a clatter.
How many days had it been?
Only a few days had passed since they obtained the treasure bone. Had this child not only comprehended it, but also fused Suanni's laws of lightning into his flesh?
"Burp~"
Shi Hao let out a satisfied belch.
He puffed out a small golden thundercloud that crackled in the air.
He looked blearily at the dumbstruck villagers around him, then grinned, revealing two rows of little white teeth flashing with electricity.
"The meat... smells so good. Uncles, time to eat."
That call broke the deathly silence.
"Eat! What are you all staring at? Get your bowls!"
Shi Hou kicked the still-drooling Ermeng in the backside and banged his large ladle against the pot's rim with a deafening clatter.
In an instant, Stone Village erupted.
They all crowded around with large bowls, wooden basins, and even clay jars in their arms.
Shi Hou swung his ladle, serving meat with every scoop.
Everyone received a bowl of golden lightning broth and a large chunk of translucent Suanni meat.
"Gulp."
Shi Feijiao held his bowl. Before he even drank, the rosy light shimmering through the broth nearly intoxicated him.
He took one mouthful.
"Boom!"
A flush instantly surged across the man's face, as though he had downed two catties of fiery liquor.
He staggered a couple of steps, then plunged headfirst into a haystack and began snoring.
Yet even in sleep, his aura climbed steadily, his bones snapping and crackling.
Shi Yunfeng's beard trembled. "The energy is too pure. His body has spontaneously entered a dormant state to digest it! Wonderful stuff. This truly is a tremendous blessing!"
Soon, people lay sprawled all over the village entrance.
The adults lay every which way, while the children rolled on the ground with flushed faces after just a couple of mouthfuls of broth, faint rosy light rising from their bodies.
Shi Hao had eaten so much that he could no longer walk. His little belly bulged as he leaned against Kang, waiting for his meal to settle.
As for Shi Hou...
He stared fixedly at the red numbers jumping madly across his vision.
[Detected that the sole diner, 'Shi Hao,' has finished eating.] [Hundredfold Return triggered!]
"Hum!"
His Blood Qi Value, which had fallen to just fifty thousand, began surging wildly.
Six hundred thousand... eight hundred thousand... one million!
It still hadn't stopped!
Shi Hou couldn't help throwing his head back and releasing a low, beast-like roar.
His black skin grew even darker. Faint, dark-gold patterns flowed beneath it, then quickly disappeared.
[Current Blood Qi Value: 1,200,000 (one million two hundred thousand).]
One million two hundred thousand catties of tremendous strength!
Even a pure-blooded ancient ferocious beast cub could only reach the supreme limit of a hundred thousand catties at this realm.
Shi Hou's physical strength was now twelve times that of those so-called divine beast cubs!
He slowly raised his hand, spread his fingers, then abruptly clenched them.
"Bang!"
He crushed the air in his palm into an explosion, producing a muffled, thunderous blast.
"Phew..."
Shi Hou exhaled a stale breath.
"That felt good."
"Skinny Monkey..."
A weak call came from beside him.
Shi Hou turned and saw Shi Hao clutching his belly with an aggrieved expression, his little face scrunched up.
"What's wrong? Still hungry?"
Shi Hou raised an eyebrow. Was this kid's stomach connected to a black hole?
"No... that's not it."
Shi Hao rolled over with difficulty and pointed at the black pig Kang beside him, whose rump stuck up while he buried his head in the Stone Pot, frantically licking up the remaining broth.
"He stole my last piece of meat... I wanted to beat him up, but I can't move."
Shi Hou laughed.
He walked over and picked up the black pig with one hand. Kang's belly was already perfectly round, and blue light rose from his whole body.
"Oink?"
Kang still held half an unfinished bone in his mouth. He rolled his eyes and looked innocently at Shi Hou.
"Some ambition you've got."
Shi Hou chuckled and tossed the pig beside Shi Hao to serve as a cushion.
He was just about to speak.
"Burp!"
Shi Hao couldn't hold it in and let out another resounding belch.
This time, he failed to control its direction.
A bolt of golden lightning sprayed from his mouth and shot straight toward the old chief, who was bending down to check on the villagers.
"Zzzap!"
"Ow!"
Shi Yunfeng clutched his chin and sprang three feet into the air.
The goatee the old chief had grown for years and treasured dearly instantly became a charred mass of curls, still trailing thin smoke.
His face darkened as he looked at the two boys and raised his cane to strike.
But halfway up, his hand lowered again.
He looked at his clansmen scattered across the ground, their strength greatly increased, then at Little One, whose lightning glow was now contained within him, and the dark-skinned youth whose aura was unfathomable.
A gratified smile appeared on the old chief's soot-blackened face.
But paired with that curled-up beard, his smile looked comical from every angle.
Feeling the million-strong blood qi surging within him, Shi Hou turned his gaze toward the distant depths of the Great Wilderness, a feverish gleam flashing in his eyes.
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